Did God Abandon Jesus on the Cross - Final

 

THE CRY OF DERELICTION

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Matthew 27:46, ESV)

Part 3

You will recall in my previous Blog, that I thought Dr. Tom McCall’s conclusion to his work on Christ’s cry of abandonment from the cross wasn’t convincing for the reasons given. I mainly took exception to his understanding that God abandoned Jesus TO sinful men and that the Father did not Himself abandon Christ; and his view of penal substitution, not accepting the Father’s direct action in causing His wrath to fall upon His Son.

So how are we to understand this cry of dereliction?

The Suffering Was Real

First of all, let us affirm that the suffering of Christ, bearing the sin of wicked men, was a real, objective suffering. It was not a feeling. It was real. McCall rightly warns us of this, “There are several misleading and potentially dangerous ways of interpreting the cry of dereliction. The first of these is the view that Jesus did not really suffer or was not really abandoned at all” (p. 42). John Piper stresses that Jesus was not merely feeling abandoned or speaking poetically. He really was forsaken in a specific sense: the Father poured out divine wrath on the Son as the substitute for sinners. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” means he really did [experience this]. He is bearing our sin. He bore our judgment. The judgment was to have God the Father pour out his wrath, and instead of pouring it out on us, he pours it out on him.”[1]

Kevin DeYoung[2] affirms that this forsakenness was temporal and relative, not absolute, total, or eternal (as experienced by the damned). “Jesus “experienced the abandonment and despair that resulted from the outpouring of divine wrath.” He “became the object of the Father’s wrath—the first time in all of eternity He had known the bitterness of His Father’s displeasure, the pain of His Father’s rejection.”[3]

This forsakenness was temporal and temporary. As I will explain next, it was also relative.

The Hypostatic Union of the Trinity Was Retained

The cry of Christ was not just a feeling. God imputed the guilt of sinners upon the Savior and He became sin and a curse, bearing the wrath of God (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:10). The Father treated the Son as if he were guilty—pouring out divine wrath against sin upon him as our substitute—so that we might never face that wrath or forsakenness ourselves (Hebrews 13:5).

But in that Divine Act there was no division in the divine essence or being of God (God is one; the Trinity cannot be “torn apart”). The union of the Trinity was not severed and the eternal love that the Father had for the Son was not diminished.

How is that possible? It is possible because the forsakenness pertains to Christ’s role as mediator and substitute in his incarnate state. In his human nature and experience, he endured what we deserved (the horror of bearing sin and its judgment). In his divine person and nature, he remained fully God, upheld by the Spirit, and united with the Father in will and love.

Stated otherwise, as touching His humanity, Jesus became sin, became a curse that fully paid for our sin, in our place, but as God, He remained God. That language retains the truth that Jesus did really become a propitiation for sin, and the Trinity was not ruptured. Theologians always distinguish what Christ experienced “in His humanity.” Jesus thirsted, grew weary, and cried out in forsakenness according to his true humanity, while his deity remained fully God. The person of Christ (the divine Son) endured the cross, but the suffering and dereliction occurred in and according to his human nature. (confirm[4])

This does not remove all mystery. There is yet a paradox for we must not fall into the error of Nestorianism (that the Father and Son are two separate persons). No, as the Creeds affirm: the two natures remain united in one person without confusion or separation. This means that in the mysteries of the hypostatic union of the Trinity Jesus could experience things “in his humanity” that His divine nature did not experience, yet they remained fully united. Athanasius maintained that if Christ is not God, forgiveness is impossible; if Christ is not man, humanity is not truly reconciled to God. As he summarized, "Jesus, that I know as my Redeemer, cannot be less than God"[5]. 

So, the wrath of God was borne in Christ’s humanity, yet not divided from His deity. What a mystery?

Conclusion

How should we then think about these things and how should we speak of these things? In short, Christ was truly forsaken for us so that we who are united to him by faith will never be. The cry of dereliction magnifies both the terrible cost of our sin and the glorious love of the triune God who accomplished redemption at infinite personal price, all without dividing the indivisible Trinity. This is why we can say with confidence that the God-man was forsaken as touching his humanity, yet caused no division in His deity. And because of the union of divinity and humanity in one person, Jesus' death was a "spotless sacrifice" of infinite worth.

 

 

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[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me-didnt-jesus-already-know

[2] https://www.facebook.com/tokaicommunitychurch/posts/cry-of-derelictionin-the-last-moments-of-his-life-as-he-suffered-the-cruel-torme/1050735533907107/

[3] https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/14258

[4] https://www.gty.org/sermons/80-357/principles-for-life-from-the-death-of-christ

[5] https://www.ottawagospelhall.com/post/who-was-athanasius

Did God Abandon Jesus on the Cross - Part 2

THE CRY OF DERELICTION

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Matthew 27:46, ESV)

Part 2

My interest in this subject was peaked when I watched an interview with Dr. McCall on the Logos YouTube channel where he joins Kirk E. Miller to discuss the cry of dereliction. This prompted me to purchase McCall’s book and engage with it. In my previous blog, I started a review McCall’s book,  ‘Forsaken, The Trinity, The Cross and Why It Matters‘  particularly his first chapter. There we noted he makes 4 points about the cry of Jesus. They are:

1. The cry quotes all of Psalm 22, not just verse 1a. McCall argues that Jesus has the whole Psalm in mind, expressing suffering but ending with faith in the Father.

2. “Forsaken” means abandoned to death at the hands of sinners, not relationally forsaken by the Father. In a sense McCall interprets the word ‘forsaken’ to be like delivered, handed over.

3. Solidarity with humanity, not penal wrath-bearing in the “God against God” sense.  To clarify, McCall means that Jesus enters fully into the human condition of abandonment (the alienation from God that we have caused by sin). He takes up our cries of dereliction as our representative and substitute. In his incarnate humanity, he experiences the horror and shame of death on our behalf. This is genuinely substitutionary and has a penal dimension (Christ bears the just penalty so we do not), but McCall resists framing it as the Father actively pouring out wrath on or against the beloved Son.

4. No ontological or relational rupture in the Trinity. McCall repeatedly stresses that the Father does not hate the Son, turn away from him, or interrupt their mutual love and communion. The Son remains the beloved Son even in his suffering and death. Any interpretation that implies “God against God” or a temporary division of the Trinity is mistaken.

Psalm 22

Certainly in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion he leans heavily on Psalm 22 in direct quotation and in allusion. Matthew 27:46, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” This is a direct quotation of Psalm 22:1 (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). There are also these allusions to Psalm 22:

• Matthew 27:35 — “And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.” This directly echoes Psalm 22:18 — “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
• Matthew 27:39 — “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads.” This alludes to Psalm 22:7 — “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads.”
• Matthew 27:43 — The mockers say: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him.” This closely parallels Psalm 22:8 — “He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

There is no doubt that Matthew is leaning on Psalm 22 in his account. However, McCall’s assumption that Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1a expecting His listeners to assume He was pointing to the whole psalm is an unproven assumption. He writes, “The connection between the cry of dereliction and Psalm 22, we clearly see, is not limited to Jesus’ citation of the first lines, important though that is. Rather, the whole narrative clearly and strongly echoes the Psalm throughout” (p.40).

It cannot be proven by the text that Christ’s cry of dereliction was meant to point us to the whole psalm. The plain reading of the text would simply affirm that Jesus was crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

Forsaken

“Properly understood, the cry of dereliction means that the Father abandoned the Son to this death at the hands of these sinful people, for us and our salvation” (p.47). Stated otherwise McCall is saying that God did not abandon the Son, relationally, but God abandoned the Son to the hands of sinful men. As I stated earlier, McCall is using the word “abandon” similarly to “delivered”. There is a case to be made there.  For example:

“. . . But for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:24–25, ESV)

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32, ESV)

But such an interpretation must be considered in light of other passages:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted . . . and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4–6, ESV).

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief . . .” (Isaiah 53:10, ESV).

“. . . Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:25, ESV). Propitiation means the turning away of wrath, suggesting Jesus satisfied God's wrath on the cross.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV).

“But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—” (Galatians 3:12–13, ESV). Both 2 Corinthians 5:21 and this passage teach that Christ being treated as the object of God’s wrath.

So I don’t think that McCall has made his case that Jesus was abandoned to the hands of sinners. The evidence of Scripture clearly teach that Jesus became sin, an object of God’s wrath, as a substitute for sinners.

 Penal Substitution

McCall’s view of the abandonment leads us naturally to the question of penal substitution. McCall affirms that Jesus substituted for us and dealt with the penalty of sin. But he wants a version that stops short of the Father actively pouring out wrath on or against the beloved Son. It appears that his intent is not to consider any interpretation that would somehow rupture the Trinity (of which I would also affirm) as being untenable. However, the clear instruction of Scripture (as noted above) teaches that God indeed poured out His wrath upon His Son. Therefore, we must believe that and somehow consider the union of the Trinity in a different way.

McCall does not throw away the idea that Jesus stood in our place to rescue us from judgment. He simply warns against vivid “Father punishing the Son” language that risks harming our view of who God is. His intent is valid, but his approach is not.

Tri-Unity

Again, we note McCall’s concern: The Son remains the beloved Son even in his suffering and death. Any interpretation that implies “God against God” or a temporary division of the Trinity is mistaken. To that we agree. Whatever is meant by Christ’s cry of dereliction, it did not mean that the Trinity was ruptured. That idea is utterly impossible. McCall would say that this was not the Father pouring personal wrath on or against his Son in a way that split their relationship. We say, “True.”

Unlike traditional expositors who affirm a real experience of God-forsakenness and wrath-bearing in Christ’s humanity (while carefully denying any essential break in the Trinity)—McCall is more cautious about language of the Father “turning away” or the Son experiencing divine wrath as personal abandonment.

My conclusion about Dr. McCall’s work is that it falls short of being convincing. He seems unwilling to embrace what is a mystery, or at the least a paradox. The Trinity is defined by one divine essence (being) eternally subsisting in three distinct persons who are consubstantial (of the same substance), co-equal, and co-eternal. You cannot divide the undivided God. The cross displays the harmony of the triune plan—Father sending, Son obeying and suffering, and the Spirit empowering. There’s no conflict between the Persons. So how do we understand the “forsakenness” so that Christ’s suffering is real, that His suffering was by the will and the hand of His Father, yet the unity of the Trinity remains unbroken?

To that we look to Part 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did God Abandon Jesus on the Cross - Part 1

 THE CRY OF DERELICTION

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Matthew 27:46, ESV)

Part 1

Dereliction, the state of being abandoned. What is happening on the Cross, with Jesus, in relation to the Trinity? In Stuart Townend’s familiar hymn entitled ‘Oh How Deep the Father’s Love,’ in the first stanza we read:

“How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.”[1] (Emphasis Mine)

Did the Father turn His face from Jesus? Did the Father abandon Christ on the Cross? Many modern worshippers think so. The Father’s eyes are too pure to look on iniquity (Habakkuk 2:13). The sin of the world placed on the Savior occasioned the Father to abandon Him. One of my favorite theologians, Dr. R.C. Sproul, Sr., has said, Jesus became "the most obscene thing in all of creation" in that moment, prompting the holy Father to turn His back on the Son. Is this what the Gospel writers understood Jesus to mean when He uttered those words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Dr. Thomas McCall understands this cry differently than Sproul. He writes:

“This is no cry of utter and total abandonment. There is no hint here of a severed or even strained relationship. There is no sense here of a Father who has rejected his Son or who has turned his back on him. In fact, it is hard to see how such a view could even be compatible with these last words of Jesus. To the contrary, Jesus prefaces his last words with a sense of deep relational intimacy: Jesus addresses his “Father.” And they are words of complete trust; what we see here is an expression of the closest imaginable spiritual communion. “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”[2]

In his book,  ‘Forsaken, The Trinity, The Cross and Why It Matters‘  particularly in his first chapter Dr.McCall attempts to deal with this topic. Here is my summary of this chapter ‘Was the Trinity Broken’?

These questions that he poses describe his aim:

“But Christians also read Scripture, and there they encounter the piercing and haunting cry of Jesus from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Naturally, important questions arise: Did God forsake Jesus? Did the Father turn his back on the Son in rage? Was the Trinity ruptured or broken on that day?” (p. 11)

He discusses this issue under 2 major headings:

I – DERELICTION IN MODERN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT

McCall starts his description of modern that by examine the views of Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann essentially asserts that “we cannot overemphasize the degree of abandonment Jesus suffered at the hands of his Father. The rejection of Jesus must be understood “as something which took place between God and God. The abandonment on the cross which separates the Son from the Father is something which takes place within God himself; it is stasis within God—‘God against God’—particularly if we are to maintain that Jesus bore witness to and lived out the truth of God” (pp. 16-17).

McCall examines the position of other modern scholars such as, Robert Stein, R.T. France, Craig Evans, D.A. Carson and so on. A good example of contemporary thought is “James Edwards: “Jesus is wholly forsaken and exposed to the horror of humanity’s sin;” this is a “horror so total that in his dying breath he senses his separation from God” (p. 19).

McCall concludes:

“We can summarize much of this recent theology as follows: Jesus cries out in despair because God has forsaken him completely. God has turned away from Jesus because Jesus has “become sin” and now bears the wrath of the Father. Jesus has been cursed by his Father. The eternal communion between the Father and the Son has now been [temporarily] broken” (p.22).

II – DERELICTION IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Examining Athanasus and Ambrose, McCall concludes: “So we are not to conclude that Jesus is himself abandoned—Jesus says these things only to identify with us. He represents us, and he knows that sometimes we feel as though we are abandoned by God. As our substitute, Jesus takes our affections—in all of their marred and distrustful expressions—and offers them to God on our behalf” (pp 22-23)

“For Gregory it is simply inconceivable—literally nonsensical and thus unthinkable—to suppose that the divine Son, who is eternally and necessarily holy, could literally become sin or a curse” (p. 23)

Medieval thought would not consider any notion that the Trinity is broken. The conclusion of Medieval thought was “God forsakes him “by not shielding him from the passion but abandoning him to his persecutors” (p. 26). God was forsaking the Son into the hands of wicked men.

III - SUMMARY

McCall asks: “Does a proper interpretation of this cry demand the conclusion “the Father rejected the Son”? Does the text of either Matthew or Mark actually say that the Father turned his face away from the Son? Does a responsible interpretation of this text demand that we believe “God cursed Jesus with utter damnation”? Is there anything here that says—or even implies—that the eternal communion between the Father and the Son was ruptured? Does the text actually say that the Trinity was broken” (pp. 29-30)?

“Given the centrality and importance of the doctrine of the Trinity, we should carefully evaluate any claim that there is “spiritual separation” or a “rupture” in the relationship between the Father and the Son” (p. 31).

McCall’s point is that the last words of Jesus on the cross hardly seem like abandonment but are words of a confident trust. “Understood in the light of Psalm 22, Jesus’ cry of dereliction does not support the broken-Trinity view. It does, however, cohere remarkably well with the more traditional approach. The Father forsook the Son to this death, at the hands of these sinful people, for us and our salvation” (p. 42).

IV – CONCLUSION

McCall warns us of several issues to be avoided (p. 42-43):

1.        “The first of these is the view that Jesus did not really suffer or was not really abandoned at all.”

2.        “Second, we should reject any approach that asserts God’s abandonment of the Son’s humanity during the crucifixion.”

There are some principles to retain (p. 44):

1.        “First, there is a genuine sense in which the Son in fact was abandoned by his Father.”

2.        “Second, we should affirm that throughout the passion and death of Jesus, his union with humanity was unbroken (and remained so through the resurrection and ascension and indeed is today as well).”

3.        “The third affirmation, the focus of much of our discussion so far, is also of crucial importance: the Son’s relationship to the Father is unbroken.”

So what is McCall’s conclusion? “Properly understood, the cry of dereliction means that the Father abandoned the Son to this death at the hands of these sinful people, for us and our salvation. It means that the triune God is for us—and he is for us in a way that is beyond our wildest hopes or dreams. It means that by the power of the Spirit, the Son of God “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:8)” (p. 47).

V – MY SUMMARY OF McCALL’S VIEW:

1. The cry quotes all of Psalm 22, not just verse 1a. McCall argues that Jesus has the whole Psalm in mind, expressing suffering but ending with faith in the Father.

2. “Forsaken” means abandoned to death at the hands of sinners, not relationally forsaken by the Father. In a sense McCall interprets the word ‘forsaken’ to be like delivered, handed over.

3. Solidarity with humanity, not penal wrath-bearing in the “God against God” sense. McCall wants to maintain the view that Christ’s sacrifice had a substitutionary, penal sense to it, but he resists framing it as the Father actively pouring out wrath on His beloved Son.

4. No ontological or relational rupture in the Trinity. McCall repeatedly stresses that the Father does not hate the Son, turn away from him, or interrupt their mutual love and communion. The Son remains the beloved Son even in his suffering and death. Any interpretation that implies “God against God” or a temporary division of the Trinity is mistaken.

Some of Dr. McCall’s views could be considered viable, but not all. How should we then best consider the cry of Christ from the Cross. Part 2 will continue the discussion.

 

 

 

[1] Stuart Townend Copyright © 1995 Thankyou Music (Adm. by CapitolCMGPublishing.com excl. UK & Europe, adm. by Integrity Music, part of the David C Cook family, songs@integritymusic.com)

[2] McCall, Thomas H.. Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters (p. 38). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.